Currently, the home automation almost comes to a stage to put into practical use, in which home appliances are controlled automatically in a home or far from the home. Though an initial home automation is at a level the appliances are controlled separately by using a telephone line or an infrared ray, without interconnection between the appliances, currently a method is used, in which a network of the appliances are constructed by employing communication means, and a controller for controlling the network is provided, for integrated management of the network.
A related art method for verifying a connection state of a home appliance in a home network system will be explained, with reference to the attached drawings. FIG. 1 illustrates a system of a related art home network, schematically.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art home network system is provided with a network managing home appliance 10 for managing a network, and a plurality of home appliances 20-50 connected to the network managing home appliance 10.
When the network managing home appliance 10 intends to verify connection states of the home appliances 20-50, the network managing home appliance 10 having a managing function calls a state requesting signal to respective home appliances 20-50, and the home appliances called from the network managing home appliance 10 feed responsive signals back to the network managing home appliance 10. Then, the network managing home appliance 10 can monitor, and display the connection states of the home appliances.
However, the related art home network system has a problem in that the network managing home appliance can know a changed state of the appliance only when the network managing home appliance calls the appliance if a connection state of the appliance is changed, or if it is required to verify the connection state of the appliance.